Fred's iPhone Tips

This is a compendium of tips on using the Apple iPhone 3G that I have gleaned elsewhere or by personal experience.  Remember, for tips that are new to you, it is best if you TRY THEM as you read this to help you learn/remember them.  It is a work in progress, so check back later for more!  Last updated:  08/24/2009.

Shortcuts

• Press the Home button (the only button on the front of the iPhone) when you are on the second, third, etc., page of applications, and you will return to the first page.  This is useful as you begin to fill up screens with application icons.  If you press Home while on the first page, you will enter Search mode, from where you can enter any term to search everywhere on your iPhone - very useful!  You can lookup contacts and calendar entries this way, for example.
• Double-press the Home button if you are running in iPod mode (e.g., music playing) but not on the iPod screen, and a window pops up with controls like Pause / Skip / Volume.  This works even if the phone is locked (but you need to wake the phone up with one extra push, so push three times).  Outside of iPod mode, double-clicking brings up your Favorites list for your phone.  (This behavior is controlled via Settings / General.)
• Tap the Status Bar (top of every page with the clock).  This will scroll you to the top of whatever is showing on the page, especially helpful for long lists like Contacts.
• Tap the space bar twice to insert a period followed by two spaces while entering text.
• Hold down the shift key while typing to capitalize several letters in a row, like OK or IBM.
• Hold down the .com key in Safari, and you will find options for adding .net, .edu, and .org instead.
• Hold down the period (.) key in Mail and you'll find the same options for adding .com, .edu, etc.
• Hold down any key to see what additional options are available (like accented characters).
• Press the Sleep/Wake button (top of phone) or one of the volume buttons (left side of phone) to immediately silence the ringer.  Press the Sleep/Wake button twice in succession to send a call to VoiceMail.

Tricks and Tips

• Save an image from a web page by holding your finger on the image.  After a few seconds, a dialog box comes up asking you if you want to Save Image.
• Take a screen shot (an image of the current iPhone screen) by holding the Home button and briefly pressing the Sleep/Wake button.  The image will be recorded under Photos, Camera Roll, from where you can email it or otherwise use it.  (Example:  the image above right.)
• Create a Mobile directory under Favorites to store website addresses which offer data formatted to fit your iPhone screen.
• Find free WIFI spots for your iPhone while traveling at iphone.jiwire.com.  (Suggestion:  go there now from your iPhone Safari browser and save it as a Favorite under Mobile.)  There are also several apps in the iPhone store for this.
• Rearrange screen icons by pressing and holding one of them until all of them jiggle.  Then drag and drop icons wherever you want them.  Drag them off-screen to the right to get to additional pages.  Press the Home key when done to stop all that jiggling!
• Zoom in on some text by holding your finger on it.  This is especially helpful if you want to place the cursor somewhere to delete or edit it.  After the zoom takes place and the text is enlarged in a small circle, you may move the position of the cursor by dragging your finger left or right.  (See the image to the right for an example.)
• Copy, Cut, and Paste:  double-tap a word and it gets selected and offers you the opportunity to Cut, Copy, or Paste.  By dragging the blue dots, you can expand or narrow the area to be processed before tapping on which of the three options you wish to exercise.  Tap once elsewhere to make the options go away.  In Safari, you can't double-tap:  just hold your finger in the general area you wish to manipulate, and when you let go, the Copy option will appear.
• Sort your Phone Favorites list by tapping Favorites, then Edit, then drag the triple-bar symbol to the right of each contact to a new place in the list, then tap Done.
• Delete a podcast by dragging to the right across the name and selecting the Delete option which appears.
• Create your own ringtones.  See the separate tip below.
• Alter "Syncing will change more than 5% of your Notes on this computer" threshold.  On the PC, this is done via the iTunes, Edit, Preferences, Devices tab.  On a Mac, use the iSync program and set Preferences. 8/24/09

Applications

One of the great things about the iPhone is the number of FREE applications you can easily add to it.  (There are also some fee applications to choose from, but so many great ones are free.)  To add find an application, simply tap the App Store icon.  Here are my favorites:

• Pandora:  Wow, this is great!  Enter and artist or song you like, and Pandora will play it and similar music for hours.  Or enter a genre you like (such as Pop, Jazz, or New Age).  The selections are fantastic.
• Shazam:  Listens to any music playing nearby and tells you the name of the song and artist.
• Wikipanion:  If you know what Wikipedia is, this is the iPhone interface.
• Google Earth:  It is absolutely amazing to watch Google Earth zoom in on your location with satellite photos!
• Flashlight:  turns the screen all white (other options available) to act as an emergency flashlight or signal.
• Ruler:  only good for up to 3", but you never know when you'll need to measure something while you're out!  What the heck, it's free!  There is also a level tool (iHandy Level).
• Yelp:  Finds Restaurants, Bars, Coffee Shops, Banks, Gas Stations, and Drugstores nearby to wherever you are.  Even gives you ratings, relative cost, and reviews, and lets you refine search characteristics.
• Translator:  Translates words from one language to another.
• Unit:  Converts one unit into another in many categories, like Currency, Temperature, Length, Weight, etc.
• WootWatch:  This may be your introduction to Woot.com, where you'll find some amazing one-day bargains from their multiple sites.

Resources

• iPhone Alley - All Things iPhone (including tips, many of which from Michael Johnson are included above)
• iPhone Central - All the latest news and reviews from Macworld
• iPhone FAQ - News, Reviews, Tips, Guides, and more
• FreeAppAlert - former paid iPhone apps that are now free
• Official Apple iPhone Website

Create Your Own Ringtones

There are several methods for creating your own ringtones, so this is just one of them (from a CNET video, with detailed clarification by yours truly!).  It seems complicated, but I believe you will find the steps clearly documented.  (You can also find a detailed video on YouTube.)

1. Start iTunes.
2. Find an unprotected song you wish to excerpt for a ringtone.  In other words, it can't have DRM copyright protection, such as a purchase from iTunes.  A track copied from a CD would be fine.
3. Play the song in iTunes, watching the elapsed time indicator.  Note the exact start and end times for the segment you wish to extract.  For instance, you may like a musical riff which starts 21 seconds into the song and ends 28 seconds in.  (I think the maximum length you can use for a ringtone is 30 seconds.  Remember that whatever you specify will repeat.)
4. Right-click the song title and choose Get Info from the menu.  Using the Options tab, enter the Start Time and Stop Time you just determined in the previous step.  Close the dialog box.  Play the song to make sure you have excerpted exactly what you want.
5. Go back and adjust the Start and Stop times as necessary until you get the excerpt exactly right.  You can specify fractions of a second in the following manner:  0:13.4, for 13.4 seconds into the song.  By temporarily setting iTunes Control / Repeat option to One, you can hear how the excerpt will sound on your iPhone as it loops.  Play with those tenths of a second to get the loop to start "on the beat"!
6. With the song still selected, click Advanced in the iTunes menu bar and choose Create AAC Version (formerly Convert Selection to ACC).  This will create a second, excerpted version of the same song right after the first one.  Note that the shorter duration is reflected in the Time column.
7. Before you forget it, redo the Get Info step on the ORIGINAL file to UNCHECK the Start and Stop times.  Write them down first, if you are afraid you might have to redo your creation.
8. Now take a moment to think how you want your new ringtone titled.  Making sure you have selected the shortened version of the song, open Get Info again, select the Info tab, and change the Name of the song, if you wish.  Alternatively, you can do this later, after it becomes a ringtone.
9. Resize the iTunes window, if necessary, to make is less than full size.  Minimize other applications such that at least a portion of the desktop shows through.
10. Before we go any further, you need to decide where to store your ringtone(s).  iTunes simply points to a location, so you need to save your ringtones somewhere.  The original CNET tip suggests using the Desktop, but that is hardly a good location for file storage, so I suggest creating (if it doesn't exist already) a Ringtones subdirectory in your Music directory on your computer.  The next step references whatever directory you create.
11. Open your Ringtones subdirectory.
12. Drag (with mouse button one held down) the newly created song excerpt to this subdirectory.
13. Right-click the song in the directory and select Rename.
14. Change the file extension from m4a to m4r.  (r = Ringtone, get it?!)  Do NOT change the rest of the filename, even though it may appear different from what you see in iTunes.
15. Back in iTunes, delete the excerpted AAC (m4a) version, moving it to the recycle bin.  This is essential for the technique to work!  Do not leave it in the iTunes library.
16. Now, drag the newly renamed song (now a ringtone, based on the m4r extension) from your Ringtones directory back to iTunes, dropping it in the left column on the word LIBRARY.  This will cause a Ringtones category to be created (if it doesn't exist already), and your new ringtone will be there, ready to sync with your iPhone on the next connection, after which it will appear in the iPhone Ringtones list.  (I believe you can also double-click the ringtone file in your folder and it will automatically get placed in iTunes.)
17. SYNC your iPhone.
18. Whew, you're done!  You should find your new ringtone available on your iPhone for assignment as the default ringtone or to individual callers.  If you don't find it, look back a few steps here and reread the comment about deleting the m4a file.

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